Teaching, Teaching, Teaching

Hello my wonderful fam!

Thank you all for the marvelous letters. Dad I loved the 9 mb picture you sent me, haha. My email box went from 28% to 65% in one letter! Haha, I loved it though you guys look great! Mom I'm lovin the grey hair. It's kinda like a Rogue look from Xmen, which probably doesn't make sense, so I'll just say it's sexy, wait can't use that word, it is red hot chili spicy! Ow, ow! But anyways sorry about that.  Julia Welcome to the world!!!!!!!!! I loved the pictures you sent me Dad. She is soooo cute. Tell her I love her. Jake and Kate I hope you're doing well. Kate I know you're great, Jake I hope you didn't faint or have any severe problems during your labor, haha.

Okay, soooooo here is the run down. Francesca is doing good. We actually haven't been able to see her since the last letter so nothing new. We see her tommorrow though. The reason why is... we had stake Conference in Verona which was wayyy awesome. Also Anziano L. Tom Perry wasss there! Yeahhh it was sweet and the coolest part is only our stake got to go and we are like the very edge of the stake. I'm in the Milano Zone, but in the Verona (another zone/big city) stake! So we really lucked out with that one. He was amazing! He had to say something and then have the translator translate which was cool. He gave a very simple but great talk about planting seeds and making sure we plant seeds. It was very funny he was like.... we need to use a rottertiller and dig up the earth. And Andrea, the translator who is a 28 year old stud who is going to byu in 3 weeks. He kinda reminds me of a slightly chubbier Italian Josh. So yeah, he is way cool. But he looks at Elder Perry and is like... a WHAT!? And Elder Perry is like... ummmm do you know what a till is? And Andrea is like, umm no. So he is like.. well anyways, planting seeds is very...... and then in the middle he snaps his finger and says, "I know! Do you know what a shovel is?" And then Andrea was like... ohhh, ok. So he was very cute with all the Italians here. He is a stud.

So we do this thing called dieci inviti which is ten extra invites to hear our message in a day. You can't plan them, but if your like on a bus or making calls and you talk to someone it is a bonus. So this week I worked real hard at getting them and I ended up getting 56. I need to work harder to get a perfect 70 so I am very motiviated to get the 70 invites. Dad its kinda like your sales thing. I know if I can get in 5 doors I'll sell. So for me it's like... I know if I do this that I'll get an appointment, or a number, or if not blessings at least. So a couple days ago it was getting late and I only had 4 inviti so I was like dang, I gotta get 6 more. When to my surprise I saw 6 old geezers sitting on a bench just kickin it in the breeze. Similar to the old guys in andy and griffith who just sit around all day, haha. So I was like... Anziano Ransom hold on buddy. And went up to them and was like I'm a missionary and so forth. I ended up inviting all of them to have an appointment with them and 5 of them just laughed at me, it was quite funny, but one of them, Leonardo, I ended up getting his number so we'll see what happenes with that.

Okay so this weeks miracle story. We met this African man named Koffi. There is actually quite a few Africans here that come up for work. But anyways we met Koffi and got an appointment. He lives 30 minutes outside our city. So last p-day we ended a bit early and took a bus out there to teach him and he gave us a no show. So we're like.... dang this is dumb we come all the way out here and when we call he's like.. oh sorry, I'm busy. So at first we had a very negative attitude towards this man, but we were like okay, we'll give him another chance. We went back last Friday and he was there and brought us to his house. We shared a short message about happiness and how the church has been restored when he shared with us that his sister was Mormon and her husband was a bishop in Ghana where he is from. He told us that his sister had been trying to get him to meet with missionaries but he could never find any. So he was like... I have to call my sister and tell her I finally found her. So we left and were like wow what an amazing man. So we went back this monday and taught him in more depth the restoration. We invited him to pray about it and his response was that he would, but he has been hoping for this day for a long time. So we were just like wow. So we're inspired to share a scripture about Christ getting baptized and then we asked him... Koffi, will you follow the example of Christ and be baptized July 4th (first Saturday in July)? And he was like yes, I will be able to do that. It won't be a problem. So we have a baptismal date!! He is amazing.... we also told him we wanted to see him 3 times a week to prepare him and he said that would be no problem. So we have been blessed amazingly here in Piacenza.

Also I think I told you about Cristo the crazy Romanian, and also about his kick boxer friend George. So we came back during the weekend and gave George a Book of Mormon in his language. Because he had to go to work last week but he was like... yess, I would be interested in hearing this message. So we gave it to him and he was like excellent. And we were like will you read and pray this week? And he was like, all of it? And we were like no, we'd just like you to read this passage here to start off with and his response was . . . no, I think I'll read all of it this week. Then he assessed the situation and was like... yess, I don't think it'll be a problem I'll read it all this week. 2-3 hours a day won't be too bad. Because hey I'm curious you know? So he is the bomb. He has a long way to go but we think he can do it. He smokes, drinks, and is a body guard in a club, he also says he does underground street fights sometimes to earn extra money. So he is quite the character but we know he can do it. George was the 2nd place kick boxer in 2001 in the whole world. I can't remember if I told you about him. But he's a stud. If you have any questions about anything I forget to say just ask me.

Okay so crazy fact: I have been in Italy for a month now. That just blows my mind it seems like this is my first week. Everyone has said that it only gets faster which makes me nervous because it's already going very fast. So our branch is playing another branch in basketball and they want me to play real bad but it's out of our area. In sacrament, Harold Saquing, in the announcements said, I believe that with Anziano Perkes we will be able to win, haha. So the branch president made us promise to ask President Dunaway so we were like okay, whatever haha. Of course he said no. Luckily he was talking to my companion about signing up for college classes so he managed to slip it in there. So at the stake conference Presidnet D. went up on the stage to sit down and one of the members, Andrea (Italian Josh) went up on the stand and pulled president aside and asked him if I could play, haha. He was heart broken. The members here are so funny I love them. So we brought this like 80 year old guy named Fratello Bizzi to a lesson. And then after he was like... hey come over for drinks so we were like... okay we can teach them a short lesson and get feed back from them. So we finished the lesson with brother and sister Bizzi and we were like... hey what can we do for you today? like we always do but this time she was like... ummmm.... come here. By the end of the time there we had taken down and folded all her laundry and carried these extra mattresses down to the basement. So it was very funny taking down an 80 year old couples laundry down. Kind of gross in a way but very funny, haha. So we were happy someone finally took us up on our offer. By the wayyy Matt, happy birthday!!!! Sorry, it's a bit late, haha. Time goes by too fast! Oh mom or dad if you could keep the letters I send home and you send out somehow that would be great. I don't have a ton of storage on myldsmail. Dad, thanks for the American Idol and Star Trek updates, haha. They actually have a theater here that we go by everday, so I've seen the Star Trek posters everywhere. Also I guess there is one called Public Enemies that everyone is talking about here. Mom, I still haven't gotten your letter. Did you send it to here or the missino home? I'll keep an eye out for it. So I recorded a day in the life of a missionary with my tape recorder and will probably send that off next wednesday for ya. I want to add some final recordings and then send it off. So I hope you enjoy that. If you guys want anything from Italy, what is it?? Like little candies or crushed flowers or 100% silk ties for 5 euros, haha? Lemme know if ya want anything special and I'll see what I can do for ya. haha, I'm glad to hear that my mission is hitting the world wide web. Hope I get lots of hits on my page, haha, just kidding. Dad thanks for editing my letters a touch to make them all grammar correct. This is following are sentence just to gives you a an challenges haha good fortunate edits this. Betchya couldn't edit that in 5 seconds flat haha take that. Max 1, Dad 0.

Lessons are going well. My first week here we taught, 9, then my 2nd week we taugh 12 and this last week we taught 16!! So lessons are just boomin right now. We are hoping to break 20 this week, which shouldnt be too hard. We are on track to hit it. 3 on monday and 3 yesterday. So we are workin real hard to up those lessons because if you're not teaching, then what are you doing, haha. So I can't think of anything else to write. Love ya all so much and thanks for your love and prayers.

Oh ps... mom Cia is spelt Ciao just so you know, haha. I know weird right. Here's something else for you to Learn. Word of the week would be.... Cosa le Piace fare? (pronounced Koza lay Pee-aw-che Far-eh) It meens what do you like to do?

But anyways love ya all so much thanks for the support!!

Ciao!!!!!!!